Restoring Immigration Law and Order in 100 Days

Advocacy group sketches comprehensive blueprint for Trump transition team

A Washington-based organization that advocates for stricter immigration controls has crafted a blueprint for ambitious reforms President-Elect Donald Trump can pursue in his first 100 days in office.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), noted that securing the country’s borders and solving its massive illegal immigration problem was a central promise of Trump’s campaign.

“The right to come to this country is not a civil right; it is something given by the American people.”

“No one can say that Donald Trump is not president today in large part because of the immigration positions he staked out in the campaign,” Stein told reporters at the National Press Club Tuesday. Stein and his organization plan on helping Trump deliver on his promises.

According to FAIR, a comprehensive border security strategy should focus on several areas: securing the borders, enforcing immigration laws already on the books, ending incentives that attract illegal immigration, and fundamentally and truly reforming the current immigration system to benefit American interests.

The report, which Stein said will be submitted to the Trump transition team by the end of Wednesday, details both immediate and long-term steps a Trump administration could take in order to make America’s immigration policy affordable, enforceable, and manageable — all things which America’s immigration policy under Obama is most certainly not.

Some of FAIR's recommendations that Trump could implement within his first 100 days in office include repealing all of President Obama's executive actions, including the authorization of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, cutting off federal funding to sanctuary cities, and ending Immigration and Customs Enforcement's arbitrary Priority Enforcement Program.

Trump could also prioritize construction of a physical barrier and authorize military assistance in anti-crime and anti-terrorism efforts on the border.

FAIR also made nearly 30 recommendations for the Trump transition team regarding steps Trump could take in his first year in office to bring sanity back to the country's immigration policy.

These include directing Homeland Security and the Justice Department to issue regulations barring the approval of deferred action for a wide variety of reasons, directing DHS to make illegal aliens ineligible for Temporary Protected Status, implementing a biometric "entry-exit" system at all U.S. ports of entry, and fostering interagency cooperation to prevent illegal aliens from engaging in social security fraud.

FAIR will also recommend steps to fundamentally overhaul the immigration system itself. These include reducing annual levels to 300,000 from about 1 million, limiting the extent of family based immigration so only spouses and unmarried minor children of the principal immigrant are also eligible to immigrate legally, and implementing a merit-based selection system for those wishing to immigrate.

"The right to come to this country is not a civil right; it is something given by the American people," said Stein. "The right to live in this country can be given but it can never be taken — but for too long there have been organizations and individuals in this country who believe that the right to live in this country can and should be taken," he added. "This has to end."